Advertisers will lose $51 million to ad fraud every single day in 2018, totaling $19 billion for the year, according to an estimate by Juniper Research.At PubMatic, we understand the importance of providing a transparent and brand-safe marketplace for buyers.Creating a fraud-free ecosystem requires a deep investment in product innovations that lead the industry, and operational focus across the organization day after day.

PubMatic has no tolerance for fraud on our platform. We strive to protect advertiser’s trust by maintaining aclean media buying platform with the highest inventory quality and brand safety standards.We wanted to share how we have been doing our part in April 2018:

TAG Certification

PubMatic ispleased to announcewe have been accredited with the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) “Certified Against Fraud” seal in April 2018. The seal recognizes our ongoing dedication to “combatting fraudulent non–human traffic in the digital advertising supply chain.”

TAG is a global certification program leader in rooting out criminal activities and restoring faith in the digital advertising industry. Forged through top trade organizations, TAG is committed to eliminating fraudulent traffic, combating malware, preventing Internet piracy and promoting greater transparency in digital advertising.

“We are delighted to recognize PubMatic with TAG’s Certified Against Fraud Seal, demonstrating its leadership in adopting TAG’s rigorous standards in fighting non-human traffic,” said Mike Zaneis, CEO of TAG. “We look forward to continuing to work with PubMatic to raise the bar for the digital ad industry in fighting fraud and other criminal activities that damage the supply chain.”

In addition to our recent TAG certification, we are actively fueling advertising innovation by exceeding industry standards. Our mission is to provide a transparent and brand-safe marketplace for not only our partners but the ad tech ecosystem, as a whole.

Display/Video Fraud Rates

PubMatic set a goal of less than 3% Display and Video fraud rates for 2018. We are pleased to announce we have once again bested these targets (and then some) in April 2018:

Our Display fraud rate in April averaged a paltry 1.47%--less than half of the 3% target.

Our Video fraud rate in April shrank even further to .8%--roughly 1/4 of the target!

IQ Initiatives

Inventory Quality Team:

We have a dedicated global Inventory Quality (IQ) team that adamantly believes a clean environment benefits everyone. We take a rigorous approach to eliminating and preventing ad fraud. Our operational processes help us combat ad fraud, as it happens.

Through daily reporting and a combination of automation and manual processes, we identify IQ issues and communicate with the relevant publisher to develop a plan of action. TheIQ team reviews fraud reporting, and investigates inventory flagged for quality from both internal and external signals before relaying findings to our customer success management teams. If improvements are not seen within a defined timeframe, we move to pause or terminate the publisher account.

Global Quality Partnerships:

In addition to our proprietary technology, we partner with Media Rating Counsel (MRC) accredited inventory quality vendors, such as Integral Ad Science (IAS) and White Ops, which conduct brand-safety checks and inventory screening across multiple formats and platforms. We view these vendors as partners, sharing data and feedback to keep ahead of fraud schemes. A press release about our White Ops partnership is available here.

Fraud-Free Program:

PubMatic has been pleased to offer our Fraud-Free Program for our demand partners since November 2017. Within the program, if fraud is detected, our demand partners won’t have to pay for it.

To keep our clients, partners and industry informed of PubMatic’s stand against fraud with a money-back guarantee, we wanted to detail our Fraud-Free Program here.

In conclusion, we will continue our efforts to maintain a brand-safe programmatic ecosystem. PubMatic will fight the good fight and we urge our supply-chain partners to join us in helping to ensure the programmatic ecosystem is clean.Contact us today to learn how you can benefit from a clean programmatic landscape.

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We hope you enjoyed this report on some of PubMatic’s Inventory Quality efforts in April 2018. If you have any questions about the IQ reports or methodology, please reach out to Karl Moats, Director, Product Marketing.